If Burton Albion can go one better than last season and win promotion to League One at the third attempt, it will continue the remarkable rise of the previous non-league mainstays under the chairmanship of Ben Robinson.

These days Buton upon Trent is known for two things — beer and Nigel Clough.

The Staffordshire Market Town, which stretches itself along the main railway line that connects South Yorkshire and Derby with Birmingham and the South West, had twelve main breweries at one stage. Glance out of the train window now and you’ll see the tower and tanks of the Coors headquarters on these shores — brewing the Grolsch the marketing men would have you believe comes from Holland, and the Coors Light Jean-Claude Van Damme wants you to think is born in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

Football wise, this town hadn’t really figured on the map until relatively recently. Only formed in 1950 and awkwardly positioned in the centre of the country, the played in both the Southern and Nrthern Leagues during half a century of non-league football. They reached the semi-final of the FA Trophy once, in 1975, and won the first leg away from home over the border at Derbyshire minnows Matlock Town to set themselves up for a first ever trip to Wembley only to lose the second leg at home 2-0. That was pretty much as good as it got.

Then, in 1998, Nigel Clough, still only 32 and a fine player at Manchester City, took the unusual step of applying for the vacant managerial position here. Chairman at the time Ben Robinson said he thought the application was a wind up.

Burton had appointed high profile managers before — Neil Warnock spent time here during the 1980s — but the arrival of Clough at a time when television companies were snapping up live football rights at such a rate that even the Conference games were starting to feature on Sky Sports gave the club exposure it had never previously enjoyed. I remember watching an early round cup match from the club’s old Eton Park Ground — primarily to see our old charge Andy Sinton who was winding down his career on Albion’s left wing — and remarking that the club seemed to have been renamed Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion without anybody noticing or signing off on the decision.

Clough stayed with the Brewers for ten years, making more than 200 appearances as a player, and building the team steadily as a manager cutting his teeth. He rescued them initially from a relegation scrap in the Dr Martens Premier Division and then guided them to two second placed finishes at that level before they switched to the Unibond League in 2001 following a reorganisation of the league structure and promptly won the title scoring more than 100 goals. In the Conference they were feared opposition, reaching the play-offs but losing to Cambridge in one of several near misses.

But it’s the chairman’s story which is even more remarkable than the tale of the talented striker who gave it all up to manage his local non-league side ostensibly so he could take his children to school every day and watch them grow up — Clough would regularly cite this as his reason for turning down jobs at Derby County and elsewhere during his decade with Burton.

Ben Robinson, a local insurance broker, first joined Albion in 1974 as a board member charged with raising extra sponsorship funds. He was chairman during Warnock’s time at the club in the 1980s and then returned to the role during the 1990s when the club had fallen on hard times. It’s Robinson’s astute, patient, frugal, sensible running of things at a time when football clubs of all shapes and sizes are getting carried away and spending beyond their means in pursuit of exactly the sort of success Burton Albion have enjoyed that has made all this possible.

Robinson heaps all the praise on Clough, but it was he who completed the purchase of land belonging to tyre maker Pirelli on which Burton’s shiny new stadium stands today. That move lifted the then-Conference side to another level paving the way for the two pivotal moments in its recent history.

The first, in January 2006, was a home draw against Manchester United in the FA Cup. In front of a full house and a live televisions audience Clough’s side held United to a goalless draw to earn a replay at Old Trafford. The gate receipts from the two games paid off the debt on the £7m Pirelli Stadium, as well as attracting increased local support from a proud town, and enabled Burton to finally push on for the Football League for the first time in their history.

That promotion finally came in 2008/09 but wasn’t without its complications. Clough was finally tempted away by Derby in January that season after a first half of the campaign in which they’d only lost four times — all of them away from home — and opened up a 19 point gap at the top of the table. The league’s sponsors, Blue Square, actually paid out on Burton Albion league winner bets in February.

But the departure of Clough, and arrival of caretaker boss Roy McFarlane, heralded a collapse even Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United couldn’t match. Burton completely folded. From November 1, in all competitions, they won 17 and drew three of 21 matches. After that, starting with a draw at Woking on February 28, they lost eight and drew two of their final 14 games including five defeats from six games to finish the campaign. Ultimately, rather sheepishly, they fell over the line on the very last day with a 2-1 defeat at Torquay United, sealing promotion only because Cambridge United could only draw at Altrincham and finish two points behind.

A real shame in many ways, because Robinson, Burton and Clough deserved to canter over the line that season and celebrate a remarkable decade of work. Their initial forays into league football, under the rookie management of one-time QPR loanee Paul Peschisolido, were tough as well and a return to the Conference looked more likely than any further forward momentum.

But when Robinson sacked the Canadian in March 2012 after a run of 16 games without a win and eight straight defeats — the only time he’s dismissed a manager in 35 years on the club’s board — and appointed his assistant Gary Rowett, a hand former utility player with Leicester and Derby among others, it sparked another change for the better. Initially results were poor — they lost 7-1 at Bristol Rovers for a kick off — but Rowett has had them in the League Two play-offs for the last two seasons. They were beaten in the semi-finals by eventual winners Bradford in 2013, and then the final at Wembley against big-spending Fleetwood this year.

The feeling is they’re getting closer to moving up another rung again, as more than a decade of steady progress and sensible building continues. Having started the season with four wins and a draw confidence is high. QPR could certainly be facing less tricky cup ties than this one tomorrow night.

Read the thoughts of Burton Albion regular Steve Eyley in this week’s fan interview by clicking here.

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

isawqpratwcity added 14:53 - Aug 27 well done, clive, immense, sympathetic history... ...but, f*ck 'em, not tonight...
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TacticalR added 11:30 - Oct 12 Thanks for your oppo report. I didn't realise Nigel Clough had spent so much time at Albion as a player. Also interesting to hear how the club has negotiated the bumps in the road it has encountered.
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